


Wheelhouse

by Ebhenah



Series: Future Klance Family Fics [18]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Domestic Fluff, F/M, Fluff, Future Fic, Keith is a dad, Keith is a good dad, Klance Future Family, M/M, Married Klance, Parenting teens, Post Series, Slice of Life, Teenager, allura is alive, background Allura/Romelle mentioned, black paladin hates sorting laundry, canon-divergent, established klance, life on the atlas, the lions never left, whose jeans are these?, why do they all wear the same kind of clothes?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-14
Updated: 2020-06-14
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:34:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24713911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ebhenah/pseuds/Ebhenah
Summary: Keith is parenting solo for a bit while Lance is away for work when he discovers that Kashi has a problem he thinks only Papi can help with. He's trying his best, but teenagers can be difficult to convince that you aren't totally inept at romance.
Relationships: Keith/Lance (Voltron), Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Series: Future Klance Family Fics [18]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1265678
Comments: 2
Kudos: 79





	Wheelhouse

Laundry was, by far, Keith’s least favorite chore. Well, to be fair, he didn’t mind loading and unloading the machines, he hated trying to sort and fold the clothes afterwards. Why did his children have so many clothes? Who actually needed this large a wardrobe? He never thought he’d be in favor of school uniforms, but hey- apparently, that’s what having five kids will do to a person.

He held up a t-shirt and tried to remember which of his children he’d seen wearing it. It was a completely non-descript grey t-shirt! How!?!? How was he supposed to identify its owner?? If Lance were home, he’d be laughing his ass off right now. He usually dealt with the laundry, because Keith dealt with the bathrooms. It was a good balance. It allowed each of them to avoid their most hated chore. It had worked for… more years than Keith wanted to think about.

But Lance WASN’T home. Lance was representing Voltron at a conference on the other end of Coalition Space. He’d been gone a week, and barring an emergency, he wouldn’t be home for another nine days. Grumbling to himself, Keith eyed the large pile of unsorted clothes, and the very small, neat stacks of folded clothes on the couch beside him. Maybe Keith could put off the laundry sorting until he was on a vid-call with his husband?

No.

They were not sacrificing their conversation time to talk about laundry. Two decades of marriage had tempered their relationship to some degree but he refused to let it get to the point that they wasted the limited chances they had to interact while Lance was away sorting quiznaking jeans! Keith wasn’t a romantic, but even he knew that long-distance housework spelled bad things for his love life.

One size medium grey t-shirt. He could do this. Which kid owned the shirt? He had a one in four chance of getting it right, since Thace had moved out for school (and Keith was pretty sure that he wore a size large for t-shirts, anyway). Actually! Nooo- Kashi and Lucas shared a room! He didn’t have to split their clothes because they were going into the same dresser!

Grinning to himself, he folded the shirt and plunked it on top of the stack for the youngest boys. They could figure it out later. Not his problem. He grabbed the next piece of clothing and groaned. Black jeans. Those could be anyone’s! 

He needed a drink.

The door slid open and he jumped at the distraction. “Shoes off! I don’t care if you are leaving again in ten minutes!” He heard the familiar sound of first one shoe and then the other hitting the floor. It was followed by the thud of a backpack hitting the floor. He was about to tell whichever kid that was that backpacks don’t belong in the entrance (they could barely fit all the shoes and jackets without blocking the door) when he heard a groan and his son toppled bonelessly over the back of the couch, knocking all the folded, sorted laundry back into the hamper in the process.

He had to remind himself that he loved his children.

While he was doing that, Kashi upped the ante on his drama. The groan trailed off into a sigh. He rubbed his face and then flung his arm over his head with a frustrated sound.

“Rough day?” he asked, because he’d been married to Lance long enough that he’d learned that those antics meant he was supposed to ask that.

“When’s Papi gonna be home?”

“Nine days. Possibly longer.”

“Arrrgh! That’s too long!”

“What’s up, Kash?”

“Nuthin’.”

Fourteen, he reminded himself, Kashi was fourteen. Fourteen was not an age where kids were especially inclined to pour their hearts out to their parents. Except, in this case, it was ‘parent’ singular. Apparently, whatever it was that was bothering Kashi, he would have been willing to tell Lance.

Just not Keith.

That stung.

“As long as no one is any immediate danger,” he forced himself to say rather than push, “you don’t need to tell me. But, if you want to talk, I’m here.”

“Oh my God, Dad, I know! I just… really need to talk to Papi!” He covered his face with his hands, his sock feet kicking in the air behind the couch. “You wouldn’t understand!”

“Try me. I might surprise you, precious.” For all that people commented on how much Kashi acted like him, Keith didn’t really see it. He certainly didn’t have a monopoly on being a thrill-seeking kid! Besides, the fifteen or so aborted attempts to start talking, with all their eyerolls, and the frustrated growls, and tongue clucks, and groans, and the flurry of exaggerated hand and arm movements were, without a doubt, McClain traits. In fact, Kashi’s response was so eerily like Lance when he was younger that Keith suddenly realised what was most likely on his son’s mind. “What’s their name?”

“Whose name?” Kashi asked, cracking open one eye to peer at Keith through his fingers.

“Whoever it is you wanted your Papi’s advice on how to approach. Their name.”

“Casey. Her name is Casey,” he sighed, the sound an even mix of irritation and infatuation. “She’s… Dad, she’s a-maze-ing!”

“Yeah?” He couldn’t help but smile at the besotted expression on his son’s face. “What makes her so amazing?”

“She’s really smart, and she’s so funny! She cracks me up and we keep like building on each other’s jokes. It feels like I’ve known her forever! Oh! She’s into the same stuff as me, too- she skateboards and does parkour and surfs… she was actually really surprised that I did that stuff, because I grew up on the Atlas, but I was telling her about how we spend so much time on the surface with family in Cuba and how we spend a couple of weeks in the Philippines every year because of Rai and Talia. Her Mom just got transferred to the hydroponics team on the Atlas- she works with Nonna Colleen!”

“She sounds pretty special.” He knew better than to ‘be a bummer’ about stuff like this. So far, Kashi’s heart seemed to have the attention span of a goldfish, but when he was in the throes of a crush, any reminder of that went over like a lead balloon. Besides, his romantic nature was endearing. “And it sounds like you two get along well…”

“She’s my lab partner in bio,” Kashi explained with a dismissive wave of his hand, “and… like… we’re PALS… but… I dunno… I don’t wanna wreck that, but… she’s so…”

“Amazing,” he finished for him, humming softly, “yeah. You’ve made that pretty clear. I’m guessing you were going to ask your Papi for advice on… flirting? Asking her out?”

“Yeah.” He sighed dejectedly, “but it’s… it’s okay. I can wait until he gets back.”

“I might be able to help, you know.”

“No offence, Dad, but this isn’t exactly your wheelhouse.”

Well, that was insulting! “Excuse me? I have actually MET girls before. Just because I’m gay I can’t offer advice on getting to know a girl? You realize that I do KNOW women, don’t you, Kashi? I know some pretty amazing women, in fact.”

“That’s not what I meant… I meant… you… umm… I mean… People skills aren’t really your strength.”

“So, it’s not that you think I can’t give you advice on GIRLS. It’s that you think I’m so hopeless that I couldn’t possibly offer any advice on DATING?!?!”

In Kashi’s defence, he had the good grace to look a little sheepish as he shrugged and said, “well… it’s not like you have a reputation for being Mr. Popular back in school, Dad… and you know… there’s the whole thing where Papi said that you were ‘not a relationship guy’ before you two got together. Soooo…”

“Soooo… you think that people stop learning once they turn twenty or something?” He rolled his eyes at his son, “I’d like to point out that, even though I didn’t know it at the time, I am half-Galra, and Galra age differently. So, in terms of being interested in dating, I was… kind of a late bloomer by human standards. Also, I’ve given dating advice to Thace, Talia AND Rai that was actually helpful. Just… for the record.”

“Oh my God! Fine! You are obviously some kind of teenage dating guru, I’m soooo sorry I underestimated you!”

“Listen- watch the attitude!” He’d tried for stern but playful, hoping that Kashi would know that he was joking around. He’d been in too many foster homes where anything other than total deference was seen as disrespect, and where disrespect was treated like it was some kind of violent crime. He didn’t buy into the idea that fear was respect, or that children should be afraid of being themselves with their parents. They’d both worked hard to support and celebrate their kids for who they actually were, so, as annoying as it could be at times… mostly, he was glad when any of the kids got harmlessly snarky with them. It told him they felt safe. 

The snort he got from Kashi in response told him that the ‘playful’ aspect had come through, though, so he kept talking. “You’re already friends with Casey, not just pining from afar, so that’s great. That means you don’t have to find a way to break the ice, and you probably won’t get tongue-tied and freeze. Is there something specific you want to invite her to for a potential date? Are you looking for this to turn into a serious relationship? Or, do you just want to have fun and get closer? There’s nothing wrong with dating around a bit, but it is important to be up front about that, because it’s not as common as it once was…”

“I don’t knoooow,” whined his son. “All I know is that I like her sooo much. Dad, I like her soooo much!”

“Have you considered telling her that? Just… that. See if she’s on the same page? So you guys can figure things out together?”

“Oh my God! That’s a TERRIBLE idea! It’d make things sooo weird!”

“I probably would have said the same thing at your age, but… I dunno- it worked pretty well for Allura and Romelle. They’ve been together longer than your Papi and I and that’s pretty much exactly how things went for them.”

“Allura and Romelle are aliens, Dad,” he said, voice dry and expression skeptical, “completely different cultural norms.”

Keith fought the urge to laugh. ‘Cultural norms’. Like he was writing some kind of paper instead of talking about women he’d known since birth. “Not that different. Allura asked Romelle to go to a party with her and then Romelle just… asked if it was a date because she liked Allura so much… and it was. It doesn’t HAVE to be dramatic and complicated, precious. It can be just as simple as saying I really like spending time with you and I want to do more of that.”

Kashi looked at him like he had ten heads. He blinked at him three damn times before kicking his legs and rolling backwards off the couch. “Uhhh… I have homework. I should… go. Thanks, Dad!”


End file.
